Kolkata: An electric charging station with 25 chargers will be installed in New Town soon.
Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) has provided the land on which the charging station is coming up. The private operator has assured that withing three years 300 charging stations will come up.
HIDCO has been operating three air-conditioned electric buses across New Town in order to create better intra-city communication. So far about 3 lakh passengers have availed the e-Buses. These e-Buses ran even during the Covid pandemic.
There are 10 low-speed chargers for e-Rickshaws of New Town and many of these are helping the Totos/ e-Rickshaws in earning their livelihood by providing a mechanism for topping up charge on the batteries while waiting in stand for passengers. There are 10 high speed chargers meant for 4-wheeler EVs in various parking zones.
However, the one that is coming up is the largest EV charge banking facility in the same place so that 25 EVs can park side-by-side and get charged together. Located in FinTech Hub of New Town, adjoining the site of a multi-storied car parking plaza (planned), the EV chargers will be done on a PPP mode and all commissioning and operating costs will be by Lithium's JV on a revenue-sharing basis with Hidco on units of power actually sold.
NKDA has proposed to introduce e cycles along with the usual ones from September 24 on a cycle sharing scheme. The number of e vehicles in New Town is going up and NKDA has proposed that
charging facility in new buildings should be made mandatory to facilitate more and more use of e vehicles.